Free Republic

Iraqi officials – some on the record, some not – stated this week that they are finalizing an effort to remove nearly all American troops from the country following the collapse of the Islamic State “caliphate.” The plan would allegedly remove nearly all American military personnel from the country by 2025, leaving some in the autonomous northern region governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for another year. Defense Minister Thabit al-Abbasi reportedly announced the plan in an interview with the Saudi network Al Arabiya this week; the Washington Post quoted an anonymous “Iraqi military official” on Thursday describing the...

As I begin this post, please understand something. I am not an expert on the different sects of Muslims that live in Muslim countries. I have no inside knowledge or great revelation as to why they so easily resort to violence to address their grievances against each other. Having said that, no expert knowledge is needed to see what is right in front of our faces. Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims do not get along and their preferred method of resolution is to kill each other. That's what we are seeing in Baghdad. According to the reports I have read, almost...

Amid a surge of bombings in Iraq, Iran appears to be getting concerned about growing efforts to unseat Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom Tehran helped to power.Even fellow Shiites are saying Maliki, who controls all Iraq's military, security and intelligence forces, should go. At the same time, Tehran is seeking to ensure that Iraq's Shiites don't upstage Iran's long-held spiritual domination of the Shiite sect, a position that the Iranian clergy seized during Saddam Hussein's rule when he ruthlessly suppressed Iraq's Shiite majority. The political and religious friction is being intensified by the campaign of bombings and assassinations carried out...

In Iraq war, time is a weapon Special Forces officer: What we now have in Iraq is incredibly complex - elements of a failed state, insurgency and terrorism. By Bernd Debusmann - WASHINGTON US forces in Iraq, locked in a war that cannot be won by military force alone, are facing a weapon that tends to favor insurgents - time. The war is in its fourth year and public support is waning. According to opinion polls taken in May, a majority of Americans think that invading Iraq was a mistake and that things in Iraq are going badly. The souring...